The Buck of a Lifetime
I don’t consider myself a trophy deer hunter. I’ve only shot one other whitetail in my short hunting career, a beautiful spike buck in Idaho on my first deer hunt in 2023. In November 2025 I joined my husband, Scott, and friends in Idaho to hunt whitetail deer in the Clearwater National Forest. Our friend and outfitter, Mike Popp of Mike Popp’s Nature Adventures, greeted us upon arrival and discussed a plan for our group of seven hunters. Mike showed me a photo from a trail camera. A very large whitetail buck was captured on the camera after dark on October 12th. Mike set up some more cameras on a few old logging trails that had deer scrapes, but he never caught the buck on camera again before our arrival. A hunter from California had seen the buck a few days before and told us he had such a case of buck fever when he unexpectedly saw the buck that he couldn’t shoot. Mike suggested that I watch the tree line of an old clear cut where the buck was captured on camera and seen by the hunter the week before.
Before dawn the next morning, Scott and I set up camp chairs on the edge of a cedar grove with my rifle in a tripod and watched the area from dawn until dusk, only briefly seeing a doe and fawn traveling across the top of the ridge about 325 yards away. We set up a ground blind early the next morning so I wouldn’t have to sit in the rain and sleet all day. We only saw the same doe and fawn. Day three was a repeat of day two, a long day with the same doe and fawn again and no other activity. We decided to give the area a rest on day four and glassed and still-hunted other surrounding areas, seeing many does but no bucks. I told my husband that I really wanted to wait for the big buck and was willing to sit in the blind a fourth day. He explained to me that trophy hunting, especially whitetails, meant I should prepare myself to be unsuccessful. Mountain whitetail bucks in the rut will cover much ground with no particular pattern.
We woke up on Wednesday, November 26 to a couple inches of fresh snow in the higher elevations. The snow made the mountains beautiful, and I enjoyed the change in scenery from the three previous long days watching the same area. Early in the morning, we saw a fawn quickly travel across the ridge at the top of the old clearcut, never stopping. I dialed the elevation turret on my scope for 325 yards, expecting an opportunity to shoot a wolf in pursuit of the fawn. No wolf was sighted. Scott commented that the fawn being alone was promising, as the mother may have pushed the fawn away when she came into heat.
About 10:20 am on the fourth day sitting in the blind, a lone doe walked out of the timber at the corner of the old clear cut. The doe stopped and looked back behind her, and I knew at that moment that something was following her. I needed to be ready for whatever it was! Scott whispered to me as well. Then it happened; out came a mature buck. When he stopped broadside, I squeezed the trigger. Down he went! Scott looked at me and asked if I knew what just happened. I was in shock; having shot what I thought was a nice, mature buck. He stated “Honey, you just shot the buck-of-a-lifetime!”
We walked down the hillside to the deer and realized that it was the buck we were hoping for all week. I counted 12 points. His rack was wide, long and extremely heavy. He was an old deer, past his prime. His front teeth were worn down and his molars were at the gum line. Mike estimated the buck was eight years old. Imagine how many close calls with wolves, coyotes and mountain lions he had in his lifetime living in the rugged mountains above Lolo Creek in the Clearwater National Forest. We measured his rack later that day; he green-scored 174 3/8 SCI. I decided I wanted him mounted life-sized to relive the hunt over and over and show how impressive he was. Perseverance paid off and gave me the most incredible memories! I can’t wait to display him in my office! – Lisa Gingerich Olson